Consumers Can't Win

The Department of Commerce deflated the
four-year-old notion that U.S. sho pers have been on a four-year
buying spree. Estimating retail sales for 1944, the Department
predicted that the quantity of goods bought this year would be only
15% greater than in 1939, and 5% less than in 1941. But the
Department's report confirmed what every housewife knows: sky-high
retail prices make purchases of essentials seem like a mad
squandering of money. Thus the dollar volume of retail sales this year are
guesstimated at an alltime peak of $67 billion  up 60% over 1939, and
20% over 1941.